[with apologies for multiple copies]


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CALL FOR PAPERS

AAMAS-09 Workshop on Agent Mixed-Initiative Multiagent Systems (MIMS’09)

May 11 or 12, 2009, Budapest, Hungary

http://www.cs.biu.ac.il/~sarned/MIMS_2009/
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Overview
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Mixed initiative represents collaboration between humans and agents to
benefit from the strength of both parties.  While the initiation and
maintenance of bilateral interaction between humans and agents in mixed
environments is highly favorable, the process is certainly not trivial.

Many of the challenges associated with mixed initiative have been studied
in recent years within specific targeted AI research communities such as
interruption management and adjustable autonomy.  The focused studies made
great progress; however a unified system-wide approach, such in the case of
intelligent user-interfaces is missing.  For example, both interruption
management and adjustable autonomy domains attempt to improve the process
of initiating interaction with the user when both the agent and the user
have a joint goal.  Nevertheless, while for interruption management the
analysis focuses mainly on reasoning about the user's disturbance by the
interruption, adjustable autonomy research mostly focuses in finding the
best time from the system state of the problem to initiate interaction with
the user.  A combined approach in this case would attempt to find the best
interaction timing, taking into consideration both aspects of the problem.

The MIMS workshop will focus on multiagent systems that interact with
humans.  Such an interaction can be done explicitly, i.e., direct
human-agent interaction, or implicitly, i.e., interaction through emergent
behavior techniques.  In both cases, agents and humans, as individuals or as
groups, can take initiative and decide what to do next.  In such
environments, humans and agents may share goals or have conflicting goals,
and they may collaborate or compete for resources.  The primary goal of this
workshop is to bring together multiagent researchers from diverse
backgrounds that looked at key issues in multiagent mixed-initiative
systems in order to search for a synergy of ideas.  We particularly
encourage work that pertains to the following (non-limiting) topic areas:

- Innovative approaches for initiating and managing interactions between
  agents and humans in collaborative environments.

- Human vs. agent in a multiagent environment: strengths and weaknesses.

- Evaluating the system-wide benefits of joint human and computer
  collaborations.

- Learning user preferences for making decisions on her behalf in mixed
  environments.

- Human and agent reactions to interruption and repeated interruptions.

- Combining interruption management and adjustable autonomy to a unified
  framework.

- State representation and visualization for enhanced agent-human
  interaction.

- Applications and case studies.

- Emergence, evolution and culture of mixed groups, teams and communities.

- Control protocols and philosophy: who’s in charge?

- Building trust between agent and human.

- Norms and commitments in a mixed initiative environment.

- Verification and validation techniques and tools.

- Mixed-initiative architecture in human-robot environments.


Important dates and deadlines
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(tentative dates, please check the web-site for updates)

Deadline for the submission of full papers: February 10, 2009

Notification of acceptance/rejection: March 1, 2009

Deadline for the receipt of camera-ready papers: March 15, 2009

Workshop: May 11 or 12, 2009


Submission instructions
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Authors should submit full papers electronically in PS or PDF format at the
following link http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mims2009 or by
email to yadgar@AI.SRI.COM, with the exact subject line: "MIMS
submission".  Papers must be written in English, with a maximum length of 14
pages.  Please format papers according to the Springer LNCS Style
(http://www.springeronline.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,10735,5-164-2-72376-0,00.html).
Templates for Word, WordPerfect and Latex are available.  The receipt of
submissions will be acknowledged by email.  Submitted papers will be
reviewed by the program committee.

Note: Workshop attendees need not register for the main AAMAS conference,
but are encouraged to do so.


Program chairs
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* Osher Yadgar, SRI International
* David Sarne, Bar-Ilan University


Program committee
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* Pauline Berry, SRI International
* Barbara Grosz, Harvard University
* Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research
* Ece Kamar, Harvard University
* Sarit Kraus, University of Maryland and Bar Ilan University
* Roger Mailler, University of Tulsa
* David McSherry, University of Ulster
* Charles Ortiz, SRI International
* Kanna Rajan, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)
* Zack Rubinstein, Carnegie Mellon University
* Milind Tambe, University of Southern California
* Neil Yorke-Smith, SRI International


Contact
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With any inquiry please contact Osher Yadgar (yadgar@AI.SRI.COM)

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